Designing an Enterprise Video Capture System

Andy WasklewiczTECHNOLOGY ARCHITECT

Stanford University School of Medicine

Context

Overview‣ World leader in medical research and training

‣ Emphasis on multi-disciplinary research

‣ Curriculum that melds the study of basic science and the clinical practice of medicine

Basic Facts‣ Medical School Students: 400

‣ Students in 5+ years Graduate Students: 820

‣ Postdoctoral Scholars & Clinical Fellows: 1418

‣ Undergraduate & graduate students outside the SoM served by the school: 628

‣ Faculty: Practicing clinicians and researchers

Culture of Capture‣ 1980’s - Capture on VHS - available for checkout

‣ 1998 - Streaming REAL media

‣ 2007 - REAL downloadable

‣ 2008 - H.264/.MP4 downloadable

Curriculum Changes‣ Move to fewer lectures

‣ More small group and team-based learning

‣ More integrated approach - move away from discipline based courses

‣ We still capture a lot!

Internal Drivers

Accreditation ‣ Shift to “measurable outcomes”

‣ Proven skill-based competencies

‣ Curriculum tracking (database)

Off Campus Growth‣ Moving research departments

‣ Moving clinical departments

‣ Distribute content beyond MD curriculum

Video Beyond Lectures‣ Public web video increasing

‣ Requests for special video

‣ People creating their own videos (teaching and research)

‣ Students self-capturing for skills documentations

SoM Technology Trends‣ Mobility

‣ 80% of student population reports regularly using portable media device

‣ 75% have phones capable of playing media

‣ Median time spent on laptop 6-8 hours daily

Stanford School of Medicine. January 2009. Student Technology Ownership and Use Survey

Quality & Formats‣ Student/Faculty expectations

‣ Mobile devices to HD screens

Stanford School of Medicine. January 2009. Student Technology Ownership and Use Survey

New Building

‣ Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge

‣ Intersection between School of Medicine, HospitalsComputer Science, Engineering

External Drivers

Storage‣ Cheaper, faster, bigger

‣ Cloud storage

Capture & Encoding Hardware‣ Cheaper, faster

‣ Efficiency

‣ Video quality

Mobile Capture Hardware‣ Smaller, cheaper, faster

‣ Mobile consumer hardware

‣ Students can & will capture lecture themselves

Distribution Channels‣ Home grown solutions

‣ Custom applications

‣ Learning Management Systems

‣ iTunesU

‣ Youtube

‣ OpenCast

‣ Podcast Producer

‣ MediaCore

Open Communities

Policy & Conversations

‣ Listen to faculty concerns

‣ Engage in OPEN dialogue

‣ Partner with University Council

Education and Discussion

Releases and Rights‣ University media release

‣ Stanford School of Medicine release

‣ Creative Commons Licensing

Student Responsibility‣ Cover all course materials (electronic and hard copy)

‣ Provide students with more flexibility to access course materials

‣ Clarify policy on student sharing of course materials

‣ Address faculty concerns regarding redistribution of content

Content Access & Appropriate Use

Stanford University School of Medicine course materials are intended

for curriculum and course related purposes and are copyrighted by

the University. Appropriate access to this content is given for personal

academic study and review purposes only. Unless otherwise stated in

writing, this content may not be shared, distributed, modified,

transmitted, reused, sold, or otherwise disseminated.

Content Access & Appropriate UseThese materials may also be protected by additional copyright; any

further use of this material may be in violation of federal copyright law.

Violators of this policy will be referred to the Committee on

Professionalism, Performance and Promotion for disciplinary

purposes.

‣ How long to keep?

‣ Who decides?

‣ Retrieval

Archiving Policy

MediaFlow

MediaFlow

MediaFlow Goals‣ Automate the capture of all core classes and events

‣ Consolidate event data

‣ Video from anywhere to anywhere

‣ 5pm same day deadline for delivery of all media

‣ Modular systems design

System Architecture‣ Anywhere to anywhere

‣ Decoupled systems

‣ Plan for and accept obsolescence

‣ Two years of design/prototyping

‣ 500+ hardware components

‣ Eight miles AV fiber

MediaFlow - Core AV

‣ 16 Apple XServe cluster

‣ 220Ghz processing power

‣ 44TB SAN storage

MediaFlow - Core IT

Custom/Podcast Producer

Distribution

YouTube

Shared Storage

Custom/Xgrid

iTunesU

Primary MasterCamera

External Fiber

Encoders

Sakai

RSS/ATOM

Fiber Channel

AV Fiber

Internal

MediaFlow - Core ITPreflight

Archive Original Text2Speech Add Watermark Generate Bumpers

Merge Movies without transitions

Encode for iPod Audio

Encode for High Quality Video

Encode for iPod Video

Encode for High Quality Video

Generate ChaptersGenerate Chapters

OCR Chapters

Add Chapters

Merge Movies with Transitions

‣ Front-end metadata capturefor course administrators

‣ Java, Tomcat, Oracle

MediaFlow - Maestro

‣ Link between Maestro and core systems

‣ Provides data for digital signs

‣ Provides delay/start/stop/extend/flag functionality

‣ Collaboration with Apple

‣ Java, Tomcat, MySQL

MediaFlow - MediaFlowProxy

‣ Interface between MFP and networkencoders

‣ Collaboration between Stanford andTelestream

‣ Objective C, C++, C

MediaFlow - StreamGrabber

‣ H.264, MP4 wrapper

‣ Three different video “types”

‣ Playable on computer, mobile devices

‣ Output all Open and proprietaryformats simultaneously (WebM, Theora)

MediaFlow - Video Output

Content Page

MediaFlow - Media Asset Management‣ Automated ingestion of assets

‣ Automated tagging of assets

‣ Multiple levels of categorization

‣ All metadata “lives with” asset

Maestro Design Process

Designing Maestro

‣ Use cases

‣ Flow diagrams

‣ UI wireframes (whiteboard, Omnigraffle)

‣ Iterations based on feedback from users

Maestro QA‣ Team of four student QA Testers

‣ Developed test cases based on specifications

‣ Tested every test case on new features

‣ Fogbugz for case tracking

‣ Google Doc for test cases

‣ Plan for obsolescence

‣ Decoupled systems

‣ Vibrant lecture capture community

‣ Long term relationship

Lessons Learned

What’s Next‣ Open Source all code/documentation

‣ Provide lessons learned to community

‣ Provide policies

‣ Planning version 2.0